• Wednesday, 16 May, 2012

Lubricator valve blast killed worker

Willacy County: site of fatal lubricator blast

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Luke Johnson , Luke Johnson , Luke Johnson , Luke Johnson , Luke Johnson

 13 September 2011 22:40 GMT

A fatal blast last week at an XTO-operated well in Willacy County, Texas, occurred when a sudden surge of gas blew a valve off a lubricator that was being installed on the wellhead, striking and killing a worker, the Texas Railroad Commission said.

The state’s main oil and gas regulator said on Tuesday it had wrapped up its investigation into the incident that took the life of a subcontractor working for services company Liberty Swabbing last Friday.

A spokesman for agency, Ramona Nye, said the investigation had found that XTO had not violated any of the commission’s rules at the incident site.



The victim was “in the process of installing a lubricator on the wellhead, when a sudden surge of gas hit the lubricator causing a valve to separate from the lubricator, striking a worker”, Nye told Upstream in an email.



Willacy County emergency management coordinator Frank Torres said he responded on Friday to a report of “some sort of blast” at the site, which is located “way out in the country” about 14 miles north of Raymondville, Texas.



He arrived with an ambulance crew and the fire department.

Torres said the victim “died from a traumatic secondary blast injury”. The victim was taken from the well site directly to the coroner’s office in Corpus Christi, Torres said.

He and the other first responders also treated the work-crew foreman, who Torres said was complaining of being unable to hear.

Torres said there was “a lot of gas escaping” from the well and that XTO staff were “very concerned” about him and other first responders getting too close to the leak.

It was unclear when or if the leak was capped. An XTO spokesman would not comment on any gas leak.

Nye said the Railroad Commission’s investigation concluded that the incident “did not involve a well blowout, fire or explosion at the gas well site”.



A spokeswoman for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the lead investigator of the incident, said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation.



She said investigations into workplace deaths can take up to six months to complete.

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